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Hyland OnBase vs IBM FileNet vs OpenText Content Management comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Enterprise Content Management category, the mindshare of Hyland OnBase is 6.5%, up from 6.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM FileNet is 9.1%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenText Content Management is 10.8%, up from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Content Management
 

Featured Reviews

Srinivas Rao Kagitha - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good dashboards and reports but fails to offer better migration features
The migration is a bit difficult in the tool. Whenever we make certain changes to workflow or other stuff, migrating the code from one environment to another is a bit tedious. The tool has an option for export and import, which is not robust. Most of the time, we need to do things stuff manually. For example, if we make any changes in the existing life cycle or any queues, we have to move those changes manually. There is no robust way to migrate code from one environment to a lower environment, like prod. When it comes to the product's technical support, the turnaround time is a bit longer than expected. The issue may be because there are a number of issues or a large number of customers who are reaching out to the support team for help. I believe that the solution's technical team can provide a solution more quickly.
Emad Rizki - PeerSpot reviewer
Facilitates seamless integration for large enterprises with strong deployment capabilities
FileNet was scalable and could be implemented into big multinational organizations. However, it has become very expensive recently. Compared to low-code solutions such as Appian and outsystems, FileNet has gaps, mainly because it requires coding, which is not preferred by clients due to pricing concerns in Pakistan. We transitioned clients to cloud solutions, although FileNet has been strongly integrated with on-prem deployments.
Jaideep MS - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables effective document control yet requires better affordability and clarity
I use extended ECM for procurement, sales, engineering documents, and sometimes invoices and accounts payable or receivable The version controls and the business workspace part integrate well with SAP and OpenText, providing granular level control over who accesses the workspace. The seamless…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Its most valuable aspect is its flexibility"
"The solution's most valuable features are integration and flexibility."
"I like the cloud and its integrability."
"Hyland OnBase is valued for its security, especially for those in the finance domain who require data confidentiality."
"OnBase is a remarkable tool. It is a well-done product. Hyland has a lot of experience in building it and looking for new things for clients in terms of functionalities. It has amazing stability, and it can grow horizontally and vertically. It is built for growth. Their technical support is also quite good and available throughout the year."
"The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities."
"The most valuable features are that it's very secure and provides audit trails for our documents."
"The product's initial setup phase is not difficult."
"It has a robust API. We are able to have systems communicate with each other, and do business process automation."
"​It is very stable and reliable."
"The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management."
"There aren't very many ECM solutions that scale properly, both up and out. We have customers who hold billions of documents. There aren't very many that can scale that far, and that can also scale out so that they can handle lots of users, lots of documents, and that understand how to handle external users. FileNet is one that can."
"FileNet can for sure cover the requirements of a medium and a big company, because of the scalability and the possibility to connect with many other IBM products."
"IBM FileNet supports our document management and compliance processes."
"The most valuable features are the interconnectivity and the collaboration. No longer do I have to wonder what system I need to go to for the data I need. I know it's in FileNet."
"One of the most valuable features is FileNet's ability to capture things from the stack, from e-mail, to scanning of Excel and Word. FileNet can also convert many types of files to PDFs very easily."
"Being able to tag metadata on documents and being able to have different workspaces in there for our documents is valuable. We do loan documents, and different types of documents have different types of retentions. We are able to categorize based on that, and we are able to do tag searching to find what we are looking for."
"Scalability is great. We can extend areas horizontally and vertically."
"An SAP user can store documents directly into OpenText without a connector."
"Retention is useful. I have been pleased with the search functionality and the extensibility for tying it into integrations with other systems and building workflows on top of it."
"The ability to add metadata and use that to categorize information is a valuable feature of OpenText Extended ECM."
"WebReports has a lot of capabilities that offer good opportunities to customize the applications the way we want to."
"The engineering document management system is one of the most valuable features."
"The version controls and the business workspace part integrate well with SAP and OpenText, providing granular level control over who accesses the workspace."
 

Cons

"We need to troubleshoot why our reports didn't get downloaded in a day. There is a workflow feature which powerful but also complicated."
"The migration is a bit difficult in the tool."
"An area for improvement would be the training - getting our people up to speed on how to use it required more training than we expected due to the complexity of the solution."
"The dashboards do have some room for improvement as compared to the other vendors which are there in the market."
"I find OnBase's monolithic architecture to be expensive, and adopting microservices could be beneficial."
"The solution’s initial setup is a little difficult."
"We are struggling with duplicates and would like to have OCR functionality when using this solution."
"For user experience, they would have to do more with the interface. It is not easy to work with and is a little messy. It is getting better, but it is not yet good enough. Other products are comparatively doing better in terms of the user interface. I have been hearing about Box, which is very easy to use and learn for the users. OnBase has to work on this aspect. It should have BPM capabilities. We compete with tools that provide the BPM feature and support those standards. They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"I think the support could be better, and it could improve."
"We would like to have more automation of rollout solutions."
"I would like to see expanded search features, like content search."
"I think it's to the point where there are probably too many features. Every software, as it matures and graduates, grows the list of features. What many of our customers express is that it's just too complicated. They're using maybe five or ten percent of the features but they're having to pay for 100 percent. There is room for improvement in terms of simplifying it."
"​I would rate the technical support as medium. I do not like the login process. It is not great."
"Simplifying both training and maintenance would be an improvement."
"I would like to have easier steps for setting up the application. They should have an easy one step process for the whole installation. Right now, you have to know the application well to set it up and have IT expertise."
"I would like IBM to improve with each release, continue moving towards a continual, tighter integration, and build solutions that take advantage of all the different modules the platform has from one place."
"The response time is not effective, and the staff lacks adequate knowledge."
"The solution needs to improve the user interface."
"OpenText Extended ECM's user interface could be improved."
"More out-of-the-box automation features should be added to OpenText Extended ECM."
"Pricing could be improved and the stability or the performance needs improvement, which is very important."
"The solution's performance, stability, and consistency could be improved."
"The tool's documentation is not proper and has missing information like steps."
"User interface needs improvement (at least in the version we are using, desktop client)."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"OnBase is reasonably priced."
"The solution costs around $6,000 per month."
"There are a number of different types of licenses. There are concurrent licenses, individual licenses and imaging licenses."
"The tool's price is high."
"They can do better in terms of the pricing model. It is a really expensive tool in Latin America. They should have different prices for different regions."
"1. It will be more expensive than estimated to setup. 2. You will need to double the staff while you are running the old system and installing the new system. 3. Depending on the number of documents to be migrated, make sure you understand the potentially massive amount of time and effort required to migrate the existing content to the new platform."
"Talking about the cost is difficult because IBM has offers that combine different products, and each of these offers has different types of licensing. IBM also has a policy that the actual price for a given customer may be very different from the stated book price. It's hard to say whether it's expensive or not."
"FileNet is quite expensive, although Documentum is expensive too."
"Licensing costs depend on the size of the storage."
"It is still a leading ECM solution provider, however the cost to implement and maintain are higher than other solutions."
"When it comes to pricing, IBM needs to make an effort to improve the cost. That's the main issue regarding use of FinalNet in Columbia."
"​There are lots of components to the product. Make sure before you invest that you know which components you need.​​"
"We use extraction. Therefore, we can see 80 to 85 percent accuracy on data extraction. This reduces the manual indexing part, which is definitely a gain on performance efficiency."
"Both Open Text ECM and IBM File share are expensive."
"The tool's pricing is confusing to the end customer."
"The licensing is not that complex for the core products, but it becomes more complicated for some additional modules."
"The total cost of the product will vary on the capabilities required"
"The product is pricey."
"The pricing is costly. It's costly to integrate with Office 365 and to go back and forth with the sales team."
"The solution is expensive."
"OpenText Extended ECM's pricing and licensing are aggressive and confusing for the end customer."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
9%
Insurance Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
10%
Insurance Company
9%
Government
14%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Hyland OnBase?
The solution is very developed and we are not taking full advantage of its functionalities.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hyland OnBase?
I find pricing to be on the higher side due to its monolithic architecture. I would rate it six out of ten. Transitio...
What needs improvement with Hyland OnBase?
I believe the reporting features need improvement, as other competitors in the market provide better analytics. Hylan...
What do you like most about IBM FileNet?
The product is robust and can process a lot of documents for enterprise content management.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM FileNet?
From the company's perspective, the licensing cost for IBM FileNet is still affordable. Though the license cost is so...
What needs improvement with IBM FileNet?
The API provided by IBM FileNet is a very out-of-date implementation. From the beginning, we cannot use a REST API; w...
What do you like most about OpenText Content Suite Platform?
We also have a module on top of the Content Server called WebReports that has been one of the things that helped us f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenText Content Suite Platform?
The cost is a significant factor that may deter medium-sized businesses from using OpenText extended ECM.
What needs improvement with OpenText Content Suite Platform?
The cost of the product could be improved. Currently, there are certain snags in document viewing, and communication ...
 

Also Known As

OnBase
No data available
OpenText Content Suite Platform, OpenText Core Share
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Honda France Industries, Hill County Texas, Hylant Group, ING Lease France, State of South Carolina, Syracuse University, Swindon College, Rhode Island Department of Human Services, Rochester Institute of Technology, Moen, Odense University Hospital
Suncorp Group Limited, St. Vincent Health, Citigroup, SRCSD, and UK Dept for Work and Pensions.
ATCO Australia, MSIG Asia, Orica, Salt River Project
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, OpenText, IBM and others in Enterprise Content Management. Updated: July 2025.
864,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.